O'Reilly Media, Inc.

I'm pleased to share some exciting news. On Friday, August 1st, O'Reilly purchased Pearson Education's 50% ownership share of our Safari Books Online joint venture, and Safari is now a wholly owned subsidiary of O'Reilly Media, Inc.

O'Reilly believes strongly in the direction Safari is heading, and we came to believe that there are substantial opportunities for both organizations working much more closely together. O'Reilly is primarily a media company (books, events, online in-person and video training, expert network),

When EPUB 3.0 was officially unveiled at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October, 2011, it was taken by many as the spec to end all specs.

At last, we could really get to work creating ebooks with all the things we’d always wished for — basic things like the sophisticated typography and layout we can do in print, and beyond-print features like video and interactivity — as well as some things we hadn’t thought to want, like global language support and rich metadata. Not to mention something we knew we should do but that was “too hard” before: real accessibility. Best of all, we could make just one file that would work the same everywhere…

The euphoria didn’t last long. Sure, EPUB 3 told us how to do all those things; but did they all actually work anywhere?

That was 18 months ago. Guess what? Progress happens.

Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, and technology publisher O'Reilly Media today announced that O'Reilly will distribute many of Elsevier's academic, research-focused ebooks. This expands the depth of ebooks available from O'Reilly in areas such as computer security and networking, and includes leading imprints such as Morgan Kaufmann, Syngress, Academic Press, Butterworth-Heinemann, Newnes, and Elsevier with more than 1,200 individual titles.

The digital revolution was a huge win for the act of publishing. Content is now everywhere and can be purchased anywhere. But how, in this sea of content, do publishers who invest in the time-honored processes that ensure quality content communicate that? There are many methods to boost content discoverability—many are technical, many are strategic, and all should be tailored to the content and audience in question. The most powerful—and most resilient—method for improving your content's discoverability, however, is to inspire your once-passive audience to actively seek you out.

Active discovery—where customers know to specifically seek out your content—requires branding.

In 1455 Johannes Gutenberg produced his famous "Bible"—the first book printed with moveable type—launching what would become in subsequent centuries the modern publishing industry. In 1995, Jeff Bezos sold the first book through Amazon.com, launching what would produce in less than 20 years the end of the modern publishing industry.

Hyperbole? Perhaps not, when the earth-shaking influence of the e‑commerce giant's recent moves in publishing are taken into account.

Ignoring your digital readership potential is not an option; and treating e-books as an afterthought by offering up a recycled printer's PDF is not a digital strategy. For some types of highly formatted content, a PDF version may be useful, but if that's all you do, you'll be leaving significant distribution and enhancement options (aka revenue) on the table.

On Demand Books' Espresso Book Machine (EBM) adds a portion of tech and innovation publisher O'Reilly Media's paperback catalog to its growing network.

Editors’ Picks: Quotes that we love … or at least think are pretty cool (from the past year in Book Business). And, they actually paint a pretty accurate picture of the state of things.

O'Reilly to Distribute Microsoft Press Titles and Launch New Ebook Initiatives

How does making a book—or a portion of it—available for free affect its sales? Does piracy erode sales or drive interest?